Showing posts with label Edmonton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edmonton. Show all posts

May 03, 2019

In the Key of Nira Ghani & Trail of Crumbs: Book launches (Edmonton, AB)

Join authors

Natasha Deen

and 

Lisa J. Lawrence 

for the launch of their new YA novels

In the Key of Nira Ghani
Written by Natasha Deen
Running Press Kids
9780762465477
304 pp.
Ages 12+
April 2019


 and


 Trail of Crumbs
Written by Lisa J. Lawrence
Orca Book Publishers
9781459821217
256 pp.
Ages 12+
March 2019

on 

Saturday, May 11, 2019

 2-4 p.m.

at

Audrey's Books
Edmonton, AB

 •••••••••••••••••••

Here's a little bit about each book from the publisher's or distributor's website:

In the Key of Nira Ghani
Nira Ghani has always dreamed of becoming a musician. Her Guyanese parents, however, have big plans for her to become a scientist or doctor. Nira’s grandmother and her best friend, Emily, are the only people who seem to truly understand her desire to establish an identity outside of the one imposed on Nira by her parents. When auditions for jazz band are announced, Nira realizes it’s now or never to convince her parents that she deserves a chance to pursue her passion.

As if fighting with her parents weren’t bad enough, Nira finds herself navigating a new friendship dynamic when her crush, Noah, and notorious mean-girl, McKenzie “Mac,” take a sudden interest in her and Emily, inserting themselves into the fold. So, too, does Nira’s much cooler (and very competitive) cousin Farah. Is she trying to wiggle her way into the new group to get closer to Noah? Is McKenzie trying to steal Emily’s attention away from her? As Farah and Noah grow closer and Emily begins to pull away, Nira’s trusted trumpet “George” remains her constant, offering her an escape from family and school drama.

But it isn’t until Nira takes a step back that she realizes she’s not the only one struggling to find her place in the world. As painful truths about her family are revealed, Nira learns to accept people for who they are and to open herself in ways she never thought possible.

Trail of Crumbs
After moving into a dank and drafty basement suite in West Edmonton with her truck- driving father, nasty stepmother and taciturn twin brother, Ash, seventeen-year-old Greta doesn't have high expectations for her last year of high school. When she blacks out at a party and is told the next day that she's had sex, she thinks things can't get any worse. She's wrong.

While Greta deals with the confusion and shame of that night, her stepmother and father choose that moment to disappear, abandoning Ash and Greta to the mercy of their peculiar landlord, Elgin, who lives upstairs. Even as Greta struggles to make sense of what happened to her, she finds herself enjoying her new and very eccentric family, who provide the shelter and support that has long been absent from her life. Much to Greta's surprise, she realizes there is still kindness in the world—and hope.  
 

August 30, 2018

Unity Club & Push Back: Double book launch (Edmonton, AB)

Join author
Karen Spafford-Fitz

for the launch of two new hi-lo books 
for middle grade and young adults:

Unity Club
Written by Karen Spafford-Fitz
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598-1724-1
131 pp.
Ages 10-14
August 2018

Brett is president of her school's Unity Club. When a new group home for at-risk youth opens in the neighborhood, Brett becomes friends with Jude, one of the boys who lives at the home.

After a series of acts of vandalism, the community starts demanding that the group home be shut down. Brett doesn't believe that Jude, or any of the other teens, is responsible, but when an elderly woman is seriously injured, Brett begins to have doubts. 
Retrieved from Orca website at https://www.orcabook.com/Unity-Club-P1778.aspx

and

Push Back
Written by Karen Spafford-Fitz
Lorimer
978-1-459413757
184 pp.
Ages 13-18
September 2018

Sixteen-year-old Zaine Wyatt has a lot to be angry about. His mother walked out of his life when he was 12, and he was kicked out of his Aunt Sarah's place by his uncle. After living on the streets and getting badly beaten up, he is back at Aunt Sarah's, but Zaine is still angry, afraid, and uncertain that he has a permanent place to live. When his mother breaks yet another promise to take him back, he flees to an empty art studio he has taken refuge in before. But now it is just a storage shed, and he vents his rage by trashing the place and injures the new owner as he flees.

Facing charges and a possible criminal record, Zaine agrees to participate in a restorative-justice program to keep from being kicked out again by his aunt. Zaine works to fix the damage he has caused and helps the owner's disabled grandson Lucas get to and from school, but his attempts to stay on the right side of the law are challenged by a group of teens who want to recruit him into a gang. Can Zaine complete the restorative-justice program and prove himself worthy of a home, whether with his mother or not?


Both books 

are set to launch on

Sunday, September 16, 2018

at

 2 p.m.

at

Audrey's Books
107092 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, AB

September 01, 2017

Saving Grad & Miriam's Secret: Double book launch (Edmonton, AB)

It's a double book launch!!

--------------------------------------------

Join authors

Debby Waldman

and 

Karen Spafford-Fitz

for the launch of their newest books for readers

--------------------------------------------

For the middle-grade set, there's

Miriams's Secret
 Written by Debby Waldman
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-4598142457
208 pp.
Ages 8-12
September 2017


In 1930 nine-year-old Miriam travels by train from Brooklyn to her grandparents' farm in upstate New York. Her grandparents are kind, generous people, but they aren't exactly ideal playmates for a lonely girl. When Miriam is not doing homework in the kitchen with Bubby or helping prepare meals for the migrant workers that Zayde hires to help out on the farm, she plays with the barn kittens born just before she arrived. Those kittens are her only friends, until the day Miriam discovers a young girl hiding in the barn. Cissy and her brother, Joe, who's one of Zayde's farm hands, are on the run from an abusive uncle back in Mississippi. Miriam and Cissy hit it off immediately. But their friendship is tested when Miriam is forced to choose between keeping a promise and doing the right thing.
Retrieved from 
on August 28, 2017.


--------------------------------------------

For young adults, there's

Saving Grad
Written by Karen Spafford-Fitz
Lorimer
978-1-459412521
184 pp.
Ages 13-18
August 2017


Vienna is a mixed-Métis teen whose mother has moved in with a man who turns out to be racist and violent. Vienna and her mother decide to end the situation by moving to a new city. In Edmonton, where she knows no one, Vienna goes to high school for her final year. Gradually, her school and home life feel more normal and she starts making friends. She joins the committee planning the school's graduation, where her determination and decisiveness show through. When her step-father unexpectedly shows up at Vienna's grad party, threatening Vienna and two of her schoolmates, Vienna finds the strength to keep herself, her friends and her mother out of harm's way.
Retrieved from 
on August 28, 2017.

--------------------------------------------

Both books launch on

October 1, 2017

at

2 p.m.

at

Audrey's Books
1002 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, AB

November 25, 2016

Stories of the Aurora: Book launch (Edmonton, AB)

Here's a book launch like no other!

Author Joan Marie Galat 

will be launching her fifth and newest title 

in her Dot to Dot in the Sky series



Stories of the Aurora
by Joan Marie Galat
Illustrated by Lorna Bennett
Whitecap Books
978-1-77050-210-9
68 pp.
Ages 9-13
November 2016

on Saturday, December 3, 2016

1:30 p.m.

at Telus World of Science
11211-142 St. NW
Edmonton, AB

In addition to a readingbook signingentertainmentactivities 
refreshments and door prizes, there will be a rocket launch!

The book, Stories of the Aurora, explains why the northern lights occur; features folklore from the Inuit, Norse, Romans, Mi’kmaq, Wabanaki, and other peoples; and includes back cover comments from a Canadian astronaut, NASA scientist, and CBC's Bob McDonald.


The event is free 
but register at

August 24, 2015

Through Fire & Sea: Book Launch (Edmonton)

Join

Nicole Luiken
fantasy YA author of


for the launch of her newest


Through Fire & Sea (Otherselves #1)
by Nicole Luiken
Entangled Teen
978-1-633752658
354 pp.
Ages 13+
2015

on

Saturday, September 19, 2015

at

2:00 p.m. 

in UTC-06
Happy Harbor Comics 
10729 - 104 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta


Here is the information blurb from GoodReads:

In the Fire world, seventeen-year-old Leah is the illegitimate daughter of one of the realm's most powerful lords. She's hot-blooded—able to communicate with the tempestuous volcano gods that either bless a civilization or destroy it. But then Leah discovers she's a Caller, gifted with the unique—and dangerous—ability to “call” her Otherselves in mirror worlds. And her father will do anything to use her powers for his own purposes.

In the Water world, Holly nearly drowns when she sees—and interacts with—Leah, a mirror image of herself. She’s rescued by Ryan, a boy from school with a secret he’d die to protect. Little do they know, his Otherself is the son of a powerful volcano god at war in the Fire world…and he’s about to fall.

As Leah and Holly's lives intersect, the Fire and Water worlds descend into darkness. The only way to protect the mirror worlds is to break every rule they've ever known. If they don’t, the evil seeping through the mirrors will destroy everything—and everyone—they love…

April 27, 2015

The Journal

by Lois Donovan
Ronsdale Press
978-1-55380-350-8
204 pp.
Ages 10+
February, 2015

In October, 2004, almost thirteen-year-old Kami is uprooted from Vancouver to Edmonton where the girl has inherited her grandfather’s home–or she will if she lives there until her 18th birthday–and where her mother has secured a “career opportunity” as an urban designer. But The Journal is not just a coming-of-age story of new experiences and adventures.  It’s a story about power, compassion, courage and family.  The control imposed on others purportedly for their own good, whether it be adults upon children, the authorities to those whom they serve, or men onto women, will give readers much upon which to reflect.  And I mean lots.

Kami is definitely thrust into a situation in which she has no control and there is no one to whom she can turn for support: her mom who accepted the position in Edmonton before talking to Kami about it is always too busy; Kami hasn’t seen her father in years; her mom’s parents remain in Vancouver; her father’s mother has passed and the grandfather who has left her his home in Edmonton has moved to PEI to live with his daughter; and her friends are as distant as all her plans for playing soccer and a joint 13th birthday party with friend Becca.  Not surprising that Kami is left alone to investigate her new home, discovering some memorabilia including photos and an old journal in the attic where she intends to make her loft bedroom.

But the journal of thirteen-year-old Helen Mitchell slips Kami into January 1929–though she remains in the same house–where she overhears talk of pilot Captain “Wot” May's plan to fly an anti-toxin up to Little Red River Settlement in northern Alberta where a diphtheria outbreak has occurred.  Though Kami returns promptly to her own time, a visit to the library and reading a newspaper clipping in the journal about the “Mission of Mercy” transports her back in time again, this time making the acquaintance of Helen Mitchell and her family as they head to the airfield to see pilots May and Horner off. But Kami cannot find the means to be transported back to 2004, and must deal with the repercussions of being a girl of Japanese heritage, seemingly without family, in a time when cowering to those in authority is deemed respectful and showing gratitude.

Kami does return to her own time, and back to 1929 again as well, but no matter what time period she is in, she must find ways to deal with issues of inequality–racial, gender and age–and learn from those who have charted pathways to making things right.

Lois Donovan does a commendable job of intertwining historical events such as the Mission of Mercy and the actions of the Famous Five with Kami’s life in 2004 Canada, and having Kami see her own dilemmas in relation to those of much more difficult times.  But I could not stop myself from despising Kami’s mother, and this probably prevented me from experiencing the fullness of the plot of The Journal.  In a book in which ordinary individuals show extraordinary courage and compassion to deliver medicine to a remote community, Kami’s mother shines as a self-absorbed parent who repeatedly fails to see how her decisions are solely beneficial for herself and disrespectful of her daughter.  The Journal's ending, however, is proof of Kami’s ability to forgive and her youthful resilience, because the theory of karma suggests that Mom should be the one tripping over herself to make things right.

I suspect that younger readers will not overemphasize Kami’s mom’s flaws as I have and instead will recognize the plotting as an opportunity to see into a different time and the bounty of their own lives relative to 1929.  By making Kami into a young teen whose strife-filled life is still manageable, Lois Donovan has provided hope for all and any, even those with me-first mothers.

April 20, 2014

The Boundless: Book Launches (Canada and USA)

Award-winning author

of these favourites

Kenneth Oppel

launches his newest book and series
a middle-grade fantasy with trains, murder, steampunk automotons
and no-end adventure

The Boundless

by Kenneth Oppel
HarperCollins Canada
978-1-443410328
336 pp.
Ages 10-14
Release April, 2014

While Kenneth Oppel will also be attending numerous schools, both in Canada and the United States,
most of the following tour dates at bookstores and such are open to all!





IN CANADA

April 26, 2014
2:00 PM
Chapters Brampton
Brampton, ON 

May 5, 2014
7:00 PM
Munro's Books
Victoria, BC 

May 6, 2014
9:15 AM
Belfry Theatre
Greater Victoria Public Library
Victoria, BC 

May 6, 2014
7:00 PM
Vancouver Kidsbooks
Teacher’s Night Event
3083 W Broadway
Vancouver, BC

May 7, 2014
7:00 PM
North Vancouver District Library 
(Lynn Valley branch)
1277 Lynn Valley Road 
North Vancouver, BC
 
May 10, 2014
2:00 PM
Fish Creek Library
11161 Bonaventure Dr SE 
Calgary, AB 

May 11, 2014
2:00 PM
Chapters Sherwood Park
#500 - 2020 Sherwood Drive 
Edmonton, AB

May 12, 2014
7:00 PM
McNally Robinson Grant Park
1120 Grant Avenue 
Winnipeg, MB 

May 14, 2014 
1:00 PM
Point Claire Public Library
Point Claire, QC

May 14, 2014
7:00 PM
Beaconsfield Public Library
303 Beaconsfield Boulevard 
Beaconsfield, QC




IN THE U. S.

April 28, 2014 
4:30 PM
Children's Book World
Philadelphia, PA

April 29, 2014 
10:30 AM
Politics and Prose
Washington, DC

April 30, 2014
6:30 PM
St. Charles City-County Library 
Spencer Rd. Branch 
St. Louis, MO

May 2, 2014 
7:00 PM
Anderson's Bookstore
Chicago/Naperville, IL

May 20, 2014
7:00 PM
Copperfield's Books
Petaluma, CA 

May 21, 2014
7:00 PM
Hicklebee's
San Francisco, CA 

May 22, 2014
7:00 PM
Reading Bug
San Carlos, CA

Get more details at
 Kenneth Oppel's blog at http://kennethoppel.blogspot.ca/ 
and
check out the book trailer  here.

April 09, 2014

Jamie's Got a Gun: Book Launch (Edmonton)

Join

young adult author 
Gail Sidonie Sobat

and illustrator
Spyder Yardley-Jones

for the launch of their new graphic novel for young adults

Jamie's Got a Gun
Text by Gail Sidonie Sobat
Illustrated by Spyder Yardley-Jones
Great Plains Teen Fiction
978-1-926531-88-5
224 pp.
Ages 12+
May 2014

on 

May 22, 2014

at 7 p.m.

at

the Roxy Theatre
Edmonton, Alberta

# # # # # # # # # # # #

The media release from Great Plains Teen Fiction tells this about Jamie's Got a Gun:

Jamie Kidding finds a semi-automatic handgun in an inner city dumpster. An aspiring artist, Jamie initially resorts to his notebook to record the reality of his complicated life with his mother, his deadbeat stepfather and the bullies he faces daily at his high school. Gradually, the weapon takes over Jamie’s life and his imagination, tantalizing him with deadly solutions to his personal troubles. Seduced by a sense of power, one fateful day he takes the gun to school. 

January 29, 2014

Albertan YoungCanLit Author Trio: Author Event (Edmonton)

Mark February 8th on your calendar
if you live in the Edmonton area 

because
you're fortunate to have
not one,
not two,
but
three youngCanLit authors
 
Karen Bass, Marty Chan, and Karen Spafford-Fitz

visiting

Chapters at West Edmonton Mall
from 12 p. m. to 4 p. m.




Check out some of their books below, including their latest (always far left book cover).

 
Karen Bass
  • Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press)
  • Drummer Girl (Coteau)
  • Summer of Fire (Coteau)

Marty Chan
  • The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)
  • Barnabas Bigfoot: Bone Eater (Thistledown Press)
  • The Mystery of the Cyber Bully (Thistledown Press)

Karen Spafford-Fitz
 
  • Vanish (Orca Book Publishers)
  • Dog Walker (Orca Book Publishers)


Further details about the event can be found here.

October 21, 2013

Barnabas Bigfoot, The Bone Eater: Book Launch (Edmonton)

Join
Marty Chan

author of
Barnabas Bigfoot: A Close Shave (Thistledown Press, 2011)
Barnabas Bigfoot: A Hairy Tangle (Thistledown Press, 2012)

for the launch of
the newest book starring B.C.'s teen sasquatch

Barnabas Bigfoot: The Bone Eater
Thistledown Press
978-1927068434
112 pp.
Ages 7-11
September 2013

at

Audrey's Books

10702 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, AB


on

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. (MDT)



March 17, 2013

Vanish: Book Launch Invitation (Edmonton)

Join

author Karen Spafford-Fitz
with Orca Book Publishers

on

Sunday, April 14, 2013

at

2:00 pm 

Audrey's Books
10702 Jasper Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta

for the launch of her newest middle-grade novel, 
part of the Orca Currents series


Vanish
written by Karen Spafford-Fitz
Orca Book Publishers
978-1-45980-349-7 (pbk)
131 pp.
Ages 10-14
March, 2013

A story about an important friendship between a teen at a new high school and a kindergartener with secrets in her background.

 
ENJOY
  • a brief author discussion
  • readings from Vanish
  • a book signing, and 
  • refreshments

The official invitation (below) is posted on Karen Spafford-Fitz's FaceBook page.